[203]. Arab. "Sadd"=wall, dyke, etc. the "bund" or "band" of Anglo-India. Hence the "Sadd" on the Nile, the banks of grass and floating islands which "wall" the stream. There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the "Zauba'ah" as the Arabs call it. Devils, or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots, tearing up trees, which are whirled like leaves and sticks in air, and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three thousand feet above the earth, a gigantic cloud of yellow sand which obliterates not only the horizon but even the midday sun. These sand-spouts are the terror of travellers. In Sind and the Punjab we have the dust-storm which for darkness, I have said, beats the blackest London fog.
[204]. Arab. Sár=the vendetta, before mentioned, as dreaded in Arabia as in Corsica.
[205]. Arab. "Ghútah," usually a place where irrigation is abundant. It especially applies (in books) to the Damascus-plain because "it abounds with water and fruit trees." Bochart (Geog. Sacra, p. 90) derives עוטה (utah) from עוץ Uz, son of Arab, who (he says) founded Damascus. The Ghutah is one of the four earthly paradises, the others being Basrah (Bassorah), Shiraz and Samarcand. Its peculiarity is the likeness to a seaport; the Desert which rolls up almost to its doors being the sea and its ships being the camels. The first Arab to whom we owe this admirable term for the "Companion of Job" is "Tarafah" one of the poets of the Suspended Poems: he likens (v.v. 3, 4) the camels which bore away his beloved to ships sailing from Aduli. But "ships of the desert" is doubtless a term of the highest antiquity.
[206]. The exigencies of the "Saj'a," or rhymed prose, disjoint this and many similar passages.
[207]. The "Ebony" Islands; Scott's "Isle of Ebene," i., 217.
[208]. "Jarjarís" in the Bul. Edit.
[209]. Arab. "Takbís." Many Easterns can hardly sleep without this kneading of the muscles, this "rubbing" whose hygienic properties England is now learning.
[210]. The converse of the breast being broadened, the drooping, "draggle-tail" gait compared with the head held high and the chest inflated.
[211]. This penalty is mentioned in the Koran (chapt. v.) as fit for those who fight against Allah and his Apostle; but commentators are not agreed if the sinners are first to be put to death or to hang on the cross till they die. Pharaoh (chapt xx.) threatens to crucify his magicians on palm-trees, and is held to be the first crucifier.
[212]. Arab. "'Ajami"=foreigner, esp. a Persian: the latter in The Nights is mostly a villain. I must here remark that the contemptible condition of Persians in Al-Hijáz (which I noted in 1852, Pilgrimage i. 327) has completely changed. They are no longer, "The slippers of Ali and hounds of Omar:" they have learned the force of union and now, instead of being bullied, they bully.